John Trotter, of Sefton CAB, said: “This is a despicable scam that trades on public trust in our service. We were horrified when someone who wasn’t an existing client contacted us to find out how we knew they were in debt and told us they had had a call from one of our advisers.

“We made it very clear that no CAB adviser, or anyone connected with the CAB, would ever phone or text someone out of the blue to offer debt management services. We cannot stress this too strongly, and we would urge anyone getting a bogus call like this to end the call as quickly as possible, never give or confirm any personal information, and to report the call immediately to Action Fraud and to the CAB.

“This advice applies to any cold call or text that offers you a loan, help dealing with debt problems, or claims to be from your bank – it is almost certainly a scam.”